


December 8: tasted something awful (i kinda think i like her)

by dizzy



Series: 2017 (the darkest timeline) daily fic advent [8]
Category: The Good Place (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Coffee Shops & Cafés, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-08
Updated: 2017-12-08
Packaged: 2019-02-12 10:52:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,034
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12957651
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dizzy/pseuds/dizzy
Summary: prompt:Is it bad if I really really want a trope filled, cliche filled Coffeshop AU? Is it so wrong?





	December 8: tasted something awful (i kinda think i like her)

When people ask Tahani how she takes her coffee, she says she prefers Hacienda La Esmerelda, because coffee just isn't coffee until it's grown in the shade of a guava tree on the slope of Mount Barú in Panama. 

She tilts her chin and smiles placidly while she watches panic flit across their face, then accepts with grace coated in polite disdain as they offer her the best of what they have and far less in quality than she'd prefer. She'll let them make a fuss and prepare it, take two sips, and abandon the cup to some corner for a housekeeper to find later after it's grown cold. 

If they're lucky, she'll ask for a second cup just as a sign of approval despite lacking accommodations. 

* 

She remembers how she ended up in this coffee shop the first time. 

She remembers staring down at her phone and seeing the headline, and feeling like she's just been punched in the stomach. She'd felt the tears coming on hot and fast, not pretty delicate ones that make boys buy her shiny things, but ugly ones that come from somewhere deep inside. 

She'd seen the sign for the coffee shop and thought: _no one I know would ever step foot in here._

She'd stalked in and past the counter, toward where she thought the bathrooms would be. She'll have to use five kinds of disinfectant after this, but right now she doesn't care. She just wants somewhere to scream that won't get her arrested. 

Her hand is on the doorknob when she hears a voice call out, "Hey, Pocahontas. Paying customers only." 

Tahani's breathing is shaky when she turns around, bewildered at this person clearly interrupting a very emotionally traumatic breakdown moment. "Wh- oh- fine." 

She pulls a twenty out of her pocket. "One coffee." 

"What kind, princess?" The blonde asks. 

"I don't - whatever you've got." 

The blonde rolls her eyes and smirks a bit. "Fine, you got it. Last of the pot special. Go on, do your business. But if you've got the runs, clean it up yourself! I don't get paid enough for that shit. Literally." 

*

When Tahani walks back out, she's managed to put herself and her face back together. She doesn't know who she's trying to impress, but barring no one else she can find some mid-rate clothing shop and critique their offerings or quiz them on whether underage children make their goods or not. It usually makes her feel better. 

She's about to walk out the door when she hears a throat clearing. "Don't you want your coffee?" 

"No," Tahani answers. "I don't." 

Tahani checks for a name tag and then clears her throat, using her customer service voice. "Elenaor, is it? Eleanor. I believe-" 

"I don't care," Eleanor says, interrupting her with a sharp tone and a contradicting smile. "Whatever you're about to say, I genuinely just. Do not. Care. I only need you to do one thing. Pick up the coffee cup. Walk out of here with it. If you throw it immediately into the trash once you leave, great. Not my problem. But my manager has this dumb fucking guarantee that if a drink gets rejected it comes out of our check, and that asshat actually has security cameras he checks. Now, they don't have sound, so I can say whatever the fuck on I want, but if you leave that drink sitting there then he will see and I'll have to deal with another goddamn lecture and I'm too pretty to go to jail for homicide, okay? Take. The fucking. Cup." 

Tahani takes the cup. 

* 

The thing is: she actually drinks it, too. 

Standing outside in the chill air of a city she abundantly sure she doesn't want to be in, she thinks of the messages on her phone and the hotel room that she's got booked and the judgmental eyes of Eleanor in the coffee shop, and she doesn't know what to do to make her mind stop so she lifts the cup with it's flimsy plastic lip to her lips and she drinks. 

It tastes awful going down. There's the dregs of coffee grinds against her tongue and a foul kind of bitterness that clings to the back of her tongue when she swallows. It's horrid and she drinks and drinks until she tips the cup up and drains the last of it down. 

* 

She goes back the next day, because she's got nothing else to do and she'd never admit it but being talked down to made her feel a bit like she was home again, faintly so but still reminiscent of the way her parents always spoke to her. 

"You again?" Eleanor the barista asks. 

She doesn't have an apron on today. She's sitting at a stool with her feet propped up on the counter, typing on her phone. 

"I would like," Tahani says, then clears her throat. "Another coffee." 

Eleanor lifts an eyebrow in disbelief. "Really? You came back for seconds, after what I gave you yesterday? I mean, I'm not saying I put dirty dishwater in it, but I'm also not saying I didn't." 

Tahani considers turning and walking away, but something keeps her there. "Do you have a fair trade selection?" She attempts. "Or single origin?" 

Eleanor snorts. "Does the clearance rack at Fry's count as a single origin? Because just between us, sometimes I forget to do a restock order and just buy it from there on my way in." 

"Fine." Tahani looks at the menu. "One caramel latte, half-caf with organic almond milk and one quarter pump of sugar free vanilla syrup." 

Eleanor blinks at her, then turns around and pours a medium sized cup full of coffee straight from the pot. She takes two steps to the side and slams her fist down on the vanilla syrup spout then does the same with the caramel, before splashing in some milk straight from a gallon jug that definitely says whole on the side. She snaps the plastic lid on and then smiles brightly at Tahani as she says, "That'll be four twenty-five, and don't skimp on the tip. I can tell you look like money." 

*

Phoenix has nothing to offer Tahani, but maybe nothing is exactly what she wants for just a little while. 

No praise, no punishment. No greatness to achieve, no judgement to endure. 

There are down sides - there's not a single shop with passable Belgian chocolates or the Tubillardine Whiskey that she's grown to prefer. But there are no events to attend in heels that pinch her feet, no nights spent staring up at her sister on a literal pedestal addressing adoring crowds, no waking to emptiness despite a man in bed beside her. 

What Phoenix has is this: a schedule, of sorts. 

She wakes every morning and has her tea brought up, nibbles on scones delivered with all manner of plebeian American spread like 'butter' and 'jelly' that she secretly comes to enjoy but would never disclose upon pain of death. 

She does yoga in front of a window with a view of an industrial building. She tries to read, but never gets past the second page. She puts on outfits so chic it makes people stare on the street, and she walks to the same little coffee shop where the same foul woman calls her names and makes fun of her and delivers coffee that barely counts as such. 

Tahani never lingers, always eager to make it seem like she has somewhere to be. 

*

"Look, you gotta be honest with me here, why do you drink this stuff?" Eleanor finally asks. 

It's the seventeenth day in a row that Tahani has been in. She's fairly sure Eleanor's concoctions have turned her off of coffee forever. 

"It's..." Tahani pauses. "I don't know, to be quite honest. I just don't know." 

Eleanor leans against the counter. She's tiny, bones delicate in a way her personality isn't. 

Tahani's learned a lot about Eleanor's personality over the past seventeen days. She should probably find it strange how she's filing all these things away in her mind. That Eleanor's roommate bailed on their lease. That Eleanor gets bitter at seeing happy families come in. That she doesn't like children, and dogs are fine unless their owners have them in stupid sweaters, and she actually does know how to make a decent cup of coffee - she just only makes it well for herself. 

She's also learned that Eleanor doesn't give a shit who Tahani is. She'll treat Tahani exactly like she treats every other person that walks in. 

No better. 

But no worse. 

"You know, if you're not careful, I'm gonna start to think you have a thing for me." Eleanor teases. 

Her teasing sounds a lot softer the last few days. Tahani tries to tell herself it's definitely the twenty dollar tips. 

* 

Tahani bolts awake in the middle of the night, startled out a dream about blonde hair and a pale pink mouth against her neck while fingers pinch almost painfully at her thigh. 

She's sweating and panting and throbbing in - places. It takes a second for the puzzle pieces to slide together and for her to remember exactly who it was in the dream. 

Oh. 

_Oh no._

(She doesn't get back to sleep that night.)

* 

Tahani's never been the type of person to shy away from going after what she wants. 

It's just - what she wants is somehow always out of her grasp. It's always too far away, just out of reach. 

There's always someone else. There's always someone better. Whatever she can accomplish still falls short of what she needs. 

She walks into the coffee shop with her heart in her throat. 

Eleanor looks at her, and she does that eyebrow lift again. 

This isn't some humanitarian award. This isn't a seat at a banquet hall. This isn't about money, or position, or recognition. 

This is perhaps the most selfish thing Tahani has ever done, and maybe the most honest. She can't hide away in Arizona forever. Eventually she'll have to look at what her life is and make some decisions. 

She'll start with this, though. 

*

She speaks with a confidence she doesn't feel at all when she says, "Your coffee is horrid. Would you like to go on a date with me?" 

Eleanor drops the dish towel in her hand, catching it before it completely hits the counter. She looks thrown for the first time in the eighteen days Tahani has known her. 

"You're- you're paying," Eleanor finally says, like she means for it to sound harder than it actually comes out sounding with the way her voice breaks from confusion halfway through. 

She turns and starts to make Tahani a coffee. 

Tahani smirks. "Of course I am. I'd be terrified to see what gastroenteritis factory you chose to eat it." 

"Gastrowhatthewhat," Eleanor says, squinting at her while also trying very hard not to smile. "I'll have you know that Fred's Taco Shack is now in it's fourth consecutive month without being shut down by the health inspector. If they hit five that's a new record." 

"Disgusting," Tahani says, and she's definitely smiling. "Shall I return at... wait, when do you close, actually?" 

Eleanor looks at where Tahani now knows the camera is. "I'm supposed to stay open until nine, but Fuckface McManagerDoo thinks the cameras stop working when there's not natural light coming in through the windows. Yeah, don't ask. he's dumb. Like, real dumb. I can be done by... seven? Here." 

Tahani takes the coffee Eleanor slides over to her, and puts a twenty on the counter. "Seven. Yes." 

Eleanor's fingers linger over, and for a moment Tahani thinks Eleanor is about to push it back toward her. Then Eleanor gives a little shake of her head and snatches it up, sliding it right into her pocket. Her eyes are still barely-disguised wonder when she looks at Tahani. "Seven it is. See you then, I guess?" 

*

Tahani steps outside, coffee in hand. She gives the man walking by a blinding smile before she takes a sip. 

It really is the worst drink she's ever had... but she'll finish it, like she always does.

**Author's Note:**

> follow me on [tumblr](http://alittledizzy.tumblr.com)! or [twitter](http://www.twitter.com/alittledizzy)! or don't! your choice! happy holidays!


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